ULURU (the red center) Australia

 Saturday, 26 June 2010

    The Red Centre, desert is feeling like no other. The moment I landed everything smelled like fresh dust. FRESH, it was intoxicating, it was clean and for some weird reason I couldn’t get enough of it. Our tent had a sliding glass door, felt like a war lord back in the day with army men sleeping under the stars and me, sleeping in a luxury tent overlooking the land I was about to concur. And concur indeed is the right word, it is incredibly exhausting trying to psychologically embrace the culture of the land. There are many sacred sites just in ULURU alone, watching the sunset on the rock to see how it changes colour as does the sky, standing with your back behind the sun and facing the majestic rock, you can’t help but feel small and unimportant. As soon as the sun has set and ULURU turned black, it was time to return to the tent, throw on a poncho and have dinner under the stars.

    A fire pit was swirling with flames that looked like waves dancing in the wind, a Didgeridoo was playing by an aborigines man, he was white and from Scotland “I am a native, I live on this land, I respect this land and as I am the history of it as well”, his hands were gliding up and down the Didgeridoo and fingers caressing the body of the instrument softly and gently, breathing in and out making the sound associated only with aborigines Australia “My hand movement is my dance, the sound is my breathing, this is my passion” he spoke fast and I couldn’t catch his name, it was not important what he was saying, his tone and the way he exhaled his words, the air he was taking in to sound his thoughts were lyrical and a song in itself. I felt his message without hearing the words.

     Dinner was coming to an end, Didgeridoo man finished playing, as he stood up to leave a shooting star fell behind him, he smiled and looked at the fire, I could see its reflection in his eyes, I clapped “thank you, and please, enjoy our land” he left but before completely disappearing in to the red desert which looked black as the universe above, he pointed up and said “look out” , I turned right to find the moon partially covered by the shadow of the earth and as red as the land I was on: “we are part of the shadow” I thought,  “overshadowing the moon”, it felt great to realize, as I gazed at the stars a little bit over to the right I saw the southern cross sitting in the middle of the milky way, it was vast and clear, the last and first time I saw the southern cross was in Yemen, when I was four, dad pointed it out to me, it was more magical now because it seems I am coming back to that time, to the time when my life was just beginning and the world opening up, as I thought about the opportunities and the shadow of the past passing over and disappearing the moon was clear and bright again; it was time for me to go.

Dingo:

I woke up to the extreme cold, it was 5am and I couldn’t tell what the actual temperature outside was but, getting out of the bed my bare feel went numb upon touching the floor, I quickly got back under the sheets and laid my head down, the tent’s roof was missing! The milky way was passing over me, “So that is why it’s so cold in here!” I told myself, “YUP” replied the Dingo, it circled my bed then turned into morning mist and seeped under the door.
    I woke up at 6am the alarm on my iPhone went off, it was nice and warm from the heat radiator I turned on before going to bed. Still pitch black outside I quickly got dressed and went towards the main tent. Outside I could smell the darkness,  every time of the day has a distinct feeling and mornings before sunrise feel crisp and fresh like snow, even in summer. Glen was waiting with coffee and ready to leave to meet sunrise by the great rock. He was one of the local tour guides in the area, most tour guides seem to be inexperienced or not from Australia at all, Glen was the real deal: he had a strong Aussie accent, his face and neck were bright red from too much sun and only he could pull off a crocodile hunter’s hat! We came to the base of the rock, a ascent point for climbers that was closed due to weather conditions.

“Aborigines people are the owners of the land and they don’t mind people climbing the rock, they just don’t see the need, there is no water or other resources on top” Glen explained, “they feel responsible for anyone coming to visit the land and take it closely to heart if someone is injured or killed, they need to perform passing ceremonies for the deceased and pray for his/hers family” that touched me deeply, I don’t know why but it made me shed a tear of sentimentality. We walked at the base of the rock, Glen was talking about deaths on the rock “most recent one was in April, a man in his mid 50’s climbed the rock he sat down and that was it, his heart stopped” he shook his head and added “with his wife watching the whole thing from here” he pointed down to where we were standing. He wasn’t very sentimental, he must have told that story hundreds of times, but you could still sense that it wasn’t a subject he could get used to. 


I asked him if he lived around here “yeah mate” he replied with a phrase that is just like a post card defines what it is to be an Aussie. And an Aussie he was, as I learned later he had two dingoes, a boy and a girl “I got them when they were pups, it’s the only way to raise them to be domesticated, its legal to have dingoes as pets as long as you fix them and keep them outside and on a leash, they make fantastic police dogs as well, can pick up any scent, better than any other dog, they should use them at the airports and borders”, I said “nothing says welcome to Australia better than a Dingo at the airport!” he laughed. “They live around here, at the base of the rock its good shelter and there is a water hole nearby” a little bit of pause and then Glen added “a few years back a local woman claimed that a dingo ate her baby, a week long search party looked for the remains with no luck the local court sentenced the woman to prison, everyone thought she killed the baby” I thought that was it.
     “Whether its good to climb the rock or not, everything has a good and a bad side” Glen said, I couldn’t understand where he was going with this, he went on “a backpacker decided to climb the rock at night, he was traveling alone and no one knew he was doing it. Well, he tripped or slipped, but in any case he died falling off, no one knew he was missing for 8 days, then someone reported him missing and his body was found.” “OK…” I replied “Oh No!” Glen exclaimed “that’s not it, his body was found next to a jacket, or what was left of it, it belonged to that missing baby, new forensic evidence proved that the baby was killed and eaten by a dingo, after spending years in prison the mother was released”, I didn’t know what to say.
    The area around Uluru was filled with people escorted by different tour guides that looked like they rather be anywhere else but here. We started heading for the car to take me to the airport, one of the tourist from another party behind us was talking about the rock and asking Glen random questions about the wild life, he looked and was more informed than their guide, I wasn’t really listening then someone said sarcastically “oh and dingos eat babies, ha ha ha” ...  “YUP” replied Glen.